Recently Mentioned Books

1. Start with a box of the Beethoven symphonies, either Gardiner or van Karajan cost only $20.  (For $43 the Klemperer set offers the piano concerti as well.)

Chug refers me to this new book .  A few of the ideas are:

I am reminded of Paul Cantor on Thomas Mann on hyperinflation .  Specialists may wish to consult Friedrich Achberger, "Die Inflation und die zeitgenossische Literatur," in Aufbruch und Untergang: Osterreichische Kulturzwischen 1918-1938, Franz Kadrnoska, ed. (Vienna: Europa, 1981), pp. 29-42; there are monetary policy themes in Musil, Zweig, and Broch, among others. Hans Fallada too .  Is there a monetary theme in H.G. Wells's The Last War ?; Wells was a follower of Frederick Soddy.  How about f...

"It’s too bad ' You Shall Know Our Velocity ' isn’t a novel about monetary policy."

6. Here is the major paper on economics and mental health .  Here is a collection on the same topic , by the same authors.

By Diane Coyle, the home page is here and the Amazon page is here .  This book arrived just before leaving town and so I have not read it yet…

Due out in April .

The author is Sue Fishkoff and the subtitle is Why More and More of America's Food Answers to a Higher Authority .  This late arrival is one of my favorite non-fiction books of the year, superb both on its topic and on the history and economics of certification more generally.  Here is one excerpt:

5. Nicholas Ostler, The Last Lingua Franca: English Until the Return of Babel .  A provocative book on the forthcoming decline of English as a globally dominant language.  I'm not (yet?) convinced, but I'm less unconvinced than I thought I would be.  One main point is that more and more business will be done without English at all, often through the BRICS countries.  It is interesting to see that fewer people in South Africa are learning English.

4. Samuel Moyn, The Last Utopia: Human Rights in History .  I don't have any objections to this much-touted book, but I expected to learn more from it than I did.  It didn't feel like 352 pp.

3. Richard Overy, 1939: Countdown to War .  I didn't think a book so short on this topic could be good.  I was wrong.  Overy has a strong overall track record as an author.

2. Vassily Grossman, Everything Flows .  I found this more fluent and compelling than his longer Life and Fate ; it's the story of a man who returns home from a concentration camp.  Recommended.

1. The Half-Made World , by Felix Gilman.  I very much enjoyed this mix of dystopian steampunk and speculative science fiction, reviewed by Henry here .

My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy , by Kanye West.

Sikilela , by Amabutho; from South Africa.

Timbuktu Tarab , by Khaira Arby ; from Mali, intense.

The best book to read on that topic is Robert Leonard's new and noteworthy Von Neumann, Morgenstern, and the Creation of Game Theory .  Excerpt:

My favorite recording of Swan Lake (and my favorite classical CD of 2010) is conducted by Mikhail Pletnev (controversial but there is a good review here ), who was recently cleared of child abuse charges in Thailand .

That is the new book by Jennifer Homans and it is one of the very best non-fiction works of the year, impeccably written and researched.  Here is the excerpt of greatest interest to most economists:

The author is Daniel Akst, a former guest-blogger at MR and the book is due out January 6.  I should finish grading exams, but in fact I am writing this blog post…

I agree with the conclusion but I am not sure that globalization was the mechanism.  I sometimes think of an imaginary economy with two sectors: music and bathtubs.  I believe that my bathtub is over thirty years old, yet for me it works fine and I have no desire to buy a new one.  When it comes to music, most people want to listen to what is new and hot , not Bach's B Minor Mass.  Furthermore, even within the music sector, acts seem to have declining longevity, in part due to the decline of the...

Christopher Buckley reports the following anecdote from one of his friends:

The subtitle is How the Fed Became the Dealer of Last Resort (home page here ) and the author is Perry Mehrling.  The entire book is good but the paydirt comes in the last two chapters, where we are treated to a persuasive and original account of what the crash- and post-crash Fed is all about.

The authors are Noel Maurer and Carlos Yu and the subtitle of this excellent book is How American Took, Built, Ran, and Ultimately Gave Away the Panama Canal .  In the old days they might have called this book The Panama Canal .  Excerpt:

I find it increasingly hard to resist the notion that he is the most enduring director of our time.  I've now seen Syndromes and a Century (the best place to start), Blissfully Yours , and Tropical Malady and wish to rewatch them all. Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives (not yet on DVD) won the Golden Palm at Cannes this year .  Themes of his movies include dreams, medicine and its authority relationships , sex and eroticism, homosexuality, the nature of cinema itself, memory, sudden fra...